Plato's Knowledge of Understanding

Introduction

Socrates was a huge influence on Plato while Socrates was alive. Socrates was Plato's teacher and they both studied philosophy with the understanding of the essence. To Socrates, everything had an essence. This was the basic nature of the object. The essence to Socrates was its identifying characteristic. As stated by Socrates, the only true way to understand something was to know and understand its essence. Once Socrates died Plato went on to do his own research and distinguish himself as more than just a philosopher. This was when Plato started studying more than just philosophy. Plato was well rounded at this point and started to theorize forms and ideas. These forms and ideas were the basis of Plato's school, The Academy. In order to explain his theory better to others Plato had created an analogy of the divided line. The analogy of the divided line split what was true knowledge from what was ignorance. Although complicated the theory was explained in the analogy, which described what types of objects and states of mind a person must obtain and stay away from in order to obtain true knowledge. After characterizing the theory in the divided line Plato then seeks to explain a situation in which the theory stand true with the allegory of the cave.

Discussion

Many years ago observations of life that are common today were explained much differently from the way they are interpreted now. The Earth was still the planet humans lived on, there was still rain, thunder, and lightning; however there was a substantially large difference in the explanations for events such as these. As said in the text An Introduction to the History of Psychology, “Thoughtful humans have always made empirical observations and then attempted to explain those observations” (Hergenhahn, 2008). Individuals such as Plato are still mentioned today for the leaps and bounds covered in their research. Plato was born in Athens around the time of 428 BC. Plato's original name was Aristocles, but during the times of his schooling he became known as Platon, which means broad, because of his broad range of knowledge. Plato as a young scholar studied and wrote poetry and was active in military service. At the age of 18, Platon became Socrates disciple. This focused Plato's energy entirely towards philosophy and the question of virtue.

Development

Socrates was the most profound mentor Plato ever had. When Socrates was killed it really hit home with Plato. He left Athens and made it heard that, “Nothing would be right in the world until kings were philosophers or philosophers were kings” (Gale, 2006). While Plato was gone from Athens he expanded his studies. He met with priests and prophets from all over, not just studying philosophy, but astronomy, geometry, geology, and religion. He spent most of his time in Italy. There he was greatly influenced by the Pythagoreans. It was when Plato returned to Athens in 387 B.C, that he devoted himself to studying and teaching philosophy.

At this ...